Kicking Off the World Cup Coverage with Yahoo! Search

Soccer fans around the world will be waving their flags today as the World Cup opens in South Africa — and American enthusiasm for the world’s most popular sport is reaching new heights. Since the beginning of the month, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in searches for terms like World Cup, FIFA World Cup teams and live soccer score, as well as a nearly 400% jump in the number of users looking for info on the U.S. soccer team.

Individual players are also seeing a spike in searches, with interest on the rise about jet-setting Portuguese forward (and fan favorite) Cristiano Ronaldo; Ivory Coast sensation Didier Drogba; Cameroonian captain Samuel Eto’o; striker Lionel Messi, the pride of Argentina; and American Landon Donovan, whose game-winning goal over Honduras in 2009 gave his team a place in this year’s tournament.

In the battle of the sexes, men are taking the lead in searching queries so far, with 66% of searches on the term soccer and more than 80% of the searches for “futbol “coming from the owners of XY chromosomes. But where are all these burly futbol fans, anyway? Among the regions leading the U.S. in searches for the term “soccer” on Yahoo! are Los Angeles, Houston, Detroit, and Raleigh-Durham. And if the over 700% increase in searches for World Cup soccer TV schedule is any indication, you’ll find them parked in front of their flat screens until the action stops on July 11.

Even before the first ball was dropped, some forward-thinking users were already asking who will win the World Cup? To find out, use the sports shortcut on Yahoo! Search to see real-time scores and everything else you want to know about all the players and teams – on and off the field.

You can also get the latest images from the World Cup and track your favorite players in Yahoo! Image Search. Yahoo! Video Search brings you coverage of some of the most popular teams and also takes you down memory lane with selected videos from the previous World Cup tournaments.

We’ll have more search trends for you as the World Cup progresses, so be sure to check back and see what’s buzzing on Yahoo! Search.